Robert Jones

Have been listening to Earth, Wind and Fire's LP "All 'n' All," and am swept up in their unique sound, esp. on songs "Jupiter," "Serpentine Fire" and "Fantasy." Maurice White and company have fused the perfect mix of soul, jazz, funk and samba a la Sergio Mendes. It is still as fresh as when I bought this record in 1977 when I was twelve. God, their horn ensembles are TIGHT -- like Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker on a large scale! Their other hits are just as timeless: "September," "Let's Groove," "After the Love Is Gone," "Shining Star" and "Getaway." If you haven't heard these guys, check them out. To me, they are the Sinatra of Soul.

P.S.: My favorite Beethoven "Malevolent Universe" composition is his most underrated symphony, the Fourth.

Thanks for your reply, Barbara. That's an interesting point you make about Rachmaninoff's darker pieces. My own favorite is Die Toteninsel, a tone poem in 5/4 time, very much impressionistic for the Russian composer. I don't understand, though, how she would stamp something "malevolent universe" after a few gloomy bars, as you put it. That she wouldn't have understood that music too needs conflict between the forces of light and darkness to build its own drama. Even Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto has a bit of this going on. Everyone else, thanks too for your comments. Glad to see Beethoven is still controversial almost 200 years since his passing. Peter: Interesting that passage of Wagner's description "the apotheosis of the dance," one which I'm familiar (I'm a huge Wagner fan). There's a rhythmic element in the Seventh akin to Paganini's "Moto Perpetuo," and I cannot listen to interpretations of the Seventh by too many contemporary conductors; they break it down into disjointed fragments, which wrecks Beethoven's flow of sound. The best recordings I've heard are the 1936 Toscanini/New York Philharmonic and the Erich Leinsdorf/BSO record. Ellen, sorry to hear about that story about the girl Julie. She must've been heartbroken. BTW, will check out the Szell/Cleveland record -- it seems that the best conductors of Beethoven aren't Germans, but Hungarian Jews: George Szell, Eugene Ormandy, Fritz Reiner, Sir Georg Solti. Like Toscanini makes everything sound like Verdi and Puccini, the Hungarians make it all sound like Liszt and Dvorak (a Czexh, I know, I know)! Nonemaker: Without Wagner there'd BE no heavy metal. Along with classical, I am hugely inspired by heavy metal. When Black and White Magzine interviewed me, I mentioned that my "Concrete Cathedrals" series was inspired primarily by listening to the music of Jean Sibelius and Led Zeppelin on my car CD player. When the story came out, both Sibelius and Brahms were mentioned, but no Page and Plant. Hmmmm. Still a snobbery against metal, even though John Paul Jones is music director at Westminster Abbey! On Ozzy, Randy Rhodes left his lasting influence on him. Rhodes was a classical guitar devotee, listened to Julian Bream, Segovia, etc. You can hear it in songs like "Bark at the Moon," and esp. (as you point out) "No More Tears," which was after Rhodes died (I think Zack was his guitarist at that point). My favorite Ozzy tune is "Perry Mason," because the opening Organ chords quote Fred Steiner's TV-show theme. I love soundtracks!

Oh, I was wondering where your reply was, and I found it down the list on "Music" when I expected it to be on the IOS page. Oh, well. I had listened to many of the recordings you noted, but winnowed it down to ten for my survey, trying to get in some "must haves" as well as a few surprises (Danny Aiello, Norah Jones). I didn't include Carly Simon's new stuff because, frankly, she lost her voice. And, I wasn't aware of the Johnny Mathis recording -- will look it up. I had wanted to review the Ray Charles "Standards," except it was a reissue and went with his swan song CD instead. One CD that was released just *days* after Robert Bidinotto went to press with the article was Paul Anka's killer record "Rock Swings," in which he made show-stopper jazz songs out of rock tunes by Billy Idol, Jon Bon Jovi and Nirvana, among others. It's the most innovative recording in the genre I have heard in a long time. Regarding your comments: "...factual corrections to Jones’s article" and "ones mentioned Linda Ronstadt’s recordings with Nelson Riddle: What’s New (Elektra, 1983) and Lush Life (Elektra, 1984), both of which were released before Riddle passed away in 1985, but he failed to mention the third Ronstadt-Riddle collaboration, which was released after Riddle’s death: For Sentimental Reasons (Elektra, 1986)." That was really the only "factual" error in the piece, but only depending on how the reader approaches it. I *knew* at lest I had alluded to it in my comment from the TNI piece, "This is the fourth time Ronstadt has dished out this wonderful music, and Hummin’ to Myself is her answer to those critics who backhandedly complimented her 1980s recordings with Nelson Riddle, complaining that Riddle’s orchestra overpowered her. " That is, mentioning it without mentioning it. I think what you are referring to is in this paragraph: "Then, in 1983, the standards trickle became a torrent with country-rock singer Linda Ronstadt’s album What’s New—ten scorching torch songs backed with lush orchestral arrangements by Nelson Riddle. Despite too much reverb in the processing, she pulled it off. What’s New and the 1984 follow-up, Lush Life, were Riddle’s final recordings before his untimely death in 1985; fitting that Sinatra’s long-time arranger would play so pivotal a role in bringing back the kind of music he had championed." The pertinent sentence ought to have read: "What's New and the 1984 follow-up Lush Life, were Riddle's final recordings RELEASED before his untimel death in 1985." That is, there was a modicum of ambiguity present which allows this to be misinterpreted as a sin of omission. Actually, I left it unsaid for the reason that I was paring down the article for reasons of space, and felt that I didn't need to take a side excursion down CDs released after Riddle's death, as my focus was more on Linda Ronstadt than Nelson Riddle, so I just referred to it instead in passing when reviewing "Hummin' to Myself."

Barbara. you wrote this in the thread "Wagner" (in the latter part, in the discussion of your love for works of Thomas Wolfe): "It was not logically possible, was the unnamed message of her denunciations, that Barbara loved both Atlas Shrugged and Look Homeward , Angel. To do so would be a desecration of Atlas. Barbara must renounce Wolfe in order fully to love Atlas , in order to deserve Ayn's friendship - in order to prove that she shared Ayn's sense of life. Her love for Wolfe must be stamped out; Barbara must be returned to her. And similarly with Joan and Allan Blumenthal; it was not logically possible that Joan loved the French Impressionists and also Vermeer, or that Allan loved Rachmaninoff and also Beethoven. They must renounce their false loves in order to share Ayn's sense of life." The question I have bears upon an observation I noticed in my reading about Ayn. I've witnessed more than one writer note that she would dismiss an artist (say, Renoir) out of hand based upon viewing one work. This was also attributed to her even when judging thinkers, philosophers, basing their whole body of work on scant references. I might be mistaken to some degree or other, but that's how I remember it. Nonetheless, I am curious to know if she did this in regard to music as well. It might be difficult to do with Beethoven, because his music is so ubiquitous. One cannot live a lifetime without at least encountering the opening the the Fifth Symphony, the "Ode to Joy" from the Ninth, the opening to the Moonlight Sonata and Fuer Elise, at least one could not given her context. It makes me wonder if she had ever heard Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. The "Ode to Joy" might have mirthful sentiments in its lyrics, but the austere heaviness of the symphony's opening weighs it down even as it soars. Yet, his Seventh symphony is the model of passion cross-bred with logic. The finale to me is his real "Ode to Joy," written in a classical structure, but so exuberant that it is his first unabashed foray into the realm of Romanticism. A very triumphal piece, the Allegro con Brio is also light of heart, very life-affiirming. Just wondering....

Great! It wasn't widely released in the U.S. and I just checked out my local indy/foreign theater and it opens Friday night. Now I will have to haul ass to get back there from Santa Fe!

Horrors! I wish I'd known about this one, but I only see what foreign movies make it to San Antonio. Will see if I can get the DVD to review it while it's still fresh.

I cannot believe we're FOUR pages into this topic, and no-one has mentioned the worst movie of all time, which was produced/directed by the worst director of all time, as a vehicle for his highly overrated actress of a daughter who fooled the Academy into thinking she was some kind of thespian just because she could pull off a British accent. Herewith is my previously published review of "Duets": ********* "Great for Party Drinking Games, MST 3000 Practice" by Robert L. Jones The origins of this movie are rather simple: Gwyneth Paltrow's producer father Bruce Paltrow went out and called up favors owed him from everyone he knew in Hollywood to get his little girl the Best Actress Oscar statue that always eluded his more talented wife (and Gwyneth's mother), Blythe Danner. So, as payback to daddy for greasing the palms of every has-been and old-timer in the Academy, Gwyneth starred in this strange movie that I am sure has even someone of her average Hollywood talent cringing with embarrassment when she recalls it. Basically, the film starts out with Huey Lewis (erstwhile jazzy rocker from the 1980s) starring as Ricky, a karaoke singer who is down on his luck (sort of like the real Huey Lewis). There's a great full-frontal nudity gratuitous scene though, to let you know he's a ladies' man. That one 15-second scene has the most entertainment value in the whole movie, as it was rather titillating. Next we go to Huey meeting Gwyneth (Liv), and instantly the chemistry (oil and water, sorry) begins. Angie Dickinson is pulled out of mothballs for a cameo appearance to give Huey the made-for-TV stock speech "you'd better take care of my little girl, and not blow it like you usually do." Then, it's back to yesteryear oblivion for Angie. This is important, because it establishes a sotto voce plot point that Huey and Liv have this "past" together, and a sottissimo voce point that it's a romantic past. The subplot of this movie revolves around Todd (Paul Giamatti, who played Howard Stern's boss in "Private Parts") actually a good actor, who must need the work, since he's sort of homely, but can actually act (most of the plum roles these days go to good-looking actors who can't act, like Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise or Kevin Costner). Anyhow, he finds out all of the sudden that his yuppie suburban life has been a lie and a sham, so he hits the road in order to become a karaoke singer. Although a rehash of every hackneyed plot from "Shoot the Moon" to "American Beauty," this one seems more plausible since the pitiful dialogue that comes out of Giamatti's mouth qualifies him for no other work. Another good actor, Andre Braugher, plays a black con on the lamb (Reggie) that befriends Giamatti. This supplies the movie with a lot of great "buddies on the run" scenes right out of the tradition of Robert Urich/Lorenzo Lamas school of TV cop dramas. There's also a subplot revolving around a really cute couple that you forget instantly. But, gosh, they're so cute, with that "aw shucks" quality that's right out of the best Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg........oh, I'm sorry, I meant right out of the best Michael Landon and Sherwood Schwartz scripts. Anyways, these subplots twist, revolve, meander and basically run out of steam until they conspire to locate -- surprise! -- all these karaoke singing drifters at this splendiferous karaoke championship. The suspense is notched up to full-tension here, and this is when all the threads of the plot come together. The cute couple almost misses their big break, but gets to sing just in the nick of time; you also find out that Huey and Gwyneth are -- surprise again! -- father and daughter. "Oh my God," you think to yourself, "what a pervert I must be for thinking that they were lovers," just like the movie was implying all along. Then you suddenly remember that Bruce Paltrow wrote and directed this, and you're scratching your head even more. Hmmmmm. Nonetheless, you would have never guessed that Huey was Gwyneth's father, since he has this nice richness and raspiness to his voice, and her flat performance of "Bette Davis Eyes" makes Kim Carnes' breathy alto sound like Maria Callas. However, Giamatti and Braugher's final tune bring the movie crashing -- literally -- to a climax. Having hidden behind their karaoke alter egos the entire length of the movie, the police finally get wise to the pair. Knowing the cops are closing in, Reggie belts out a convincing "Freebird," which is the last song you'd ever expect a black guy to sing, since it was by Lynyrd Skynyrd, authors of the Dixiecrat anthem "Sweet Home Alabama." After the last notes resound hauntingly throughout the hotel lounge, Braugher pulls out a gun, and kills himself, a beautiful and touching tribute to Leoncavallo's opera "I Pagliacci," though I'm sure most of the parties involved -- the intended audience, the screenwriters and Bruce Paltrow -- would never know it. I gave this movie two stars instead of one, based on the pearls-before-swine performances of Giamatti and Braugher, and also because "Duets" makes for a great party drinking game: Predict the lame plot; count the bad made-for-TV stock phrases; drink a shot every time someone sings off-key. Viewers please take caution: You will be approaching blood-alcohol poisoning levels after about 1/2 hour, so think when you drink! This movie is rated "R" for adult language and situations, nudity and violence. A designated driver is optional.

I tend to agree with Barbara. When I first saw it, I had a similar reaction. However -- and I concur with the comments about Max Steiner's music (check out "White Heat" from the same year, thrilling score) and Robert Douglas -- what hardly anyone ever mentions is the stark, Expressionistic cinematography by DP Robert Burks. Burks had been a special effects cameraman at Warner's and worked with the likes of great cinematographers Karl Freund (Fritz Lang's DP, later director of "The Mummy" and DP on "Key Largo") and Sid Hickox ("The Big Sleep"). Later on, Burks would become Hitchcock's favorite DP for movies such as "Strangers on a Train," "I Confess," "Vertigo," "North by Northwest," and "The Birds." Max Steiner's score overwhelms as do the performances of Raymond Massey and Rob't Douglas. One night, however, I watched "The Fountainhead" with the sound off and the movie simply jumped off the screen: While it had a lot of the same props and themes as film noir movies from the period (arc lamps, long diagonal shadows, etc.), Burks keeps boxing in Cooper with an oppressively tight framing, much as he does with Montgomery Clift in "I Confess." When Roark is down and out, Cooper is trapped within a world of billboards, placards and stencilled lettering on frosted plate glass windows on doors. How better to signify the theme of the lone creator against the system? Burks' camera only really looks up in contemplating Roark's buildings, even though he presents Roark as a heroic figure by shooting him from a low angle. Only one person gets the better of Roark, visually, and that's Patricia Neal as Dominique, in the famous scene with the buggy whip, in which Roark is filmed from the horseback POV. Check it out: Watch this one with the sound off. It becomes a way stronger film, just as "Psycho" becomes *weaker* without Bernard Herrmann's frenzied soundtrack.

Am going to order Wolfe's novels on my next visit to amazon, as well. I love poetry, in particular Poe and Wordsworth, and as I am rather eclectic in my tastes, it seems like a good time to get excited about a novelist all over again.

Viewing: Real (American) Football. Doing: Road cycling. I have been hit twice by SUV drivers and once by a pickup truck and am still around to tell the tales.

Revisiting this thread: You know, I am always on the lookout for "new" novelists to read, and maybe Thomas Wolfe is just the ticket. I am very much enamored with some of James Hilton's books from the same time period. My favorite novelist was from around then, Sinclair Lewis. Probably because he's a Welshie too. His keen sense of observation in "Dodsworth" is a masterpiece, and even applies today, when he writes of American expatriates who affect European attitudes, and of how the so-called European "sophistication" is often a front for provincialism, chauvanism and just plain loafing. I read "The Fountainhead" at 17 after I heard Rand admired Lewis's writing. BTW, I like Winnipeg. Some of my best photographs taken there.

Barbara: Oh, I didn't mean she was right, *literally,* in the sense of judging people based upon their artistic preferences. I didn't mean to endorse the personal hyperbole, just her assessment that Puccini was great (whether she made it or not). And, I do love Tosca, as well as Madama Butterfly.

Barbara: That's the way I feel about Riefenstahl (Olympia, not Triumph des Willens): Yes, she was a genius photographer, and yes, she was corrupt. I have had a similar experience, vis. your love of Thomas Wolfe, and one of these days I'll take on any and all comers: That photography IS an art form, and it's greatest practitioner is Walker Evans. I came to this conclusion when I was still an Objectivist, and have not backed away from it, nor will. BTW, Rand WAS right about Puccini. I could listen to "La Boheme" til the cows come home.

I'm often astonished when I see interviews of actors who have played great people. Their portrayals are amazing. They're clearly pulling upon something within themselves to do the portrayal, or at least understand enough about the characteristics they're playing to be able to do it convincingly. And in the interviews, their IQ points drop by about 30, and their characters are vapid and inane and totally unlikable. And you learn that they spend their lives partying and doing drugs and sleeping with idiots, etc. I just don't get it. How could they taste greatness and then wallow in mud? How could they dine on fine cuisine and then elect to wander around like street people eating the pickings out of the dumpsters behind fast food restaurants? Judith When it comes to the performances of actors, they have an amazing ability to do one thing brilliantly, above all else: Fake it. This is no coincidence. The world's greatest actors are criminals in the line of work known as the "confidence racket." They do not succeed because we put our confidence in them, but because they put their confidence in *us.* Is this not the same emotion we as viewers experience when we relate to an actor, because something rings true with our own values and experiences? We feel whole because of our emotional investment in them, as though it is a debt to be repaid.

Chris: Oberamergau. As a German Expressionist scholar, yes both works were milked for their anti-Semitism and then supercharged. Hitler also wanted Fritz Lang to be his Regisseur in chief, but Lang balked and fled Germany. That's how Leni Riefenstahl got that job.

I'm a huge fan of Christopher Buckley, esp. "Little Green Men," "God Is My Broker," "Thank You for Smoking," and "Florence of Arabia." His books are wonderfully cynical, sort of like Billy Wilder's movies, and he's much more a libertarian than his father.

Mark: I can understand your love for bass, but not your addiction, as you refer to it. I am an audiophile, and my living room is thankfully surrounded with gorgeous sound from my McIntosh tube amps and huge Electrovoice woofers from the 1960s and ADS bookshelf speakers from the 1980s. I challenge ANYONE with one of their cheap "home theater" systems to touch the tonal purity of my stereo system. You strive for volume, but as one who is growing deaf in his right ear from years of artillery ranges as an Army NCO, my obsession is tone (which, yes, I do love loud, but not distorted). Until a couple of years ago, I had to blast the music too, and found out that I was drowning out a lot of the nuances in the music, not just classical, but jazz and heavy metal, even punk as well. What I am getting at is this: Maybe you should try taking a different tack and channel your bass obsession for a trial period into obsessing over the full range of music frequency. Let me tell you, I really miss hearing the high pitch in my right ear (although a nice unintentional side benefit of hearing only lower midrange and bass is that now I "hear" even my monaural recordings in stereo!) Angie: You have amazing insight into the mind in how passion can spill over into unhealthy obsession. There's a great novel in you somewhere waiting to get out!

P.S.: Chris: The Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde is my favorite Wagner piece.

Wow, such a lot of response for what essentially was a throaway comment of mine. As a writer, I put on the headphones and listen to Wagner as an antidote to "writer's block" precisely because his sense of exaltation you refer to, Barbara, lifts my spirits. Jody: Do not know whether or not you are Jewish (I am not), but an interesting anecdote about Wagner was that I worked as Chief-of-Staff at a Jewish civil rights org for three years, and our legal counsel, Joel, was probably one of the ten most learned people on Mahler on the planet. He also knew every bar of Wagner, and along with me loved Kirsten Flagstad's 1937 recording of Bruennhilde's Immolation scene with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. A proud Zionist, he put it to me this way: That before God he could not disown his own experience and love for Wagner, and that whatever his sins of anti-Semitism and the Nazis' appropriation of Wagner in the most horrific manner (marching Jews into the gas chamber to its strains), that Wagner could be forgiven, for without him the music of Mahler (who was Jewish) would have not been so informed with its sense of power and tonal layering. There are many artists I detest for their many lapses of character. Yet, for many such manic folk, whose personal lives are a moral mess and otherwise a shambles, all their focus, character and integrity nonetheless find their way into the artist's work, which often is his/her way of forging order out of chaos. Michael: Yeah, it was Peikoff's discussion of Wagner's chordal dissonance and chromatics that I was referring to. I think that there is a lot of confusion vis. atonal music with *polytonal* music. For me, I love movie soundtracks and think of Max Steiner's (himself a student of Mahler) use of chromatics in such scores as "White Heat," "Key Largo," and even "The Fountainhead." I think of Bernard Herrmann's use of polytonality and ostinato, which he partly got from Wagner. That's what I meant by Wagner as the fountainhead of so much great music. Incidentally, both Steiner and Herrmann were Jewish. If we fail to recognize the merit and influence of greatness as artists, we are guilty of censoring our emotions, which are gateways to much of our own inspiration and output as aethetic creators. For example, as a photographer, I am deeply influenced by Leni Riefenstahl. Her work "Olympia" is sheer art, a direct link of athletics to the Greek ideals of beauty, proportion and regards man in a godlike manner. Hitler of course used her skill to glorify the Third Reich, which was her particular sin. I wrote two articles on Riefenstahl: One praising "Olympia," for which I received a lot of (understandable) heat from some (though not most) of my Jewish friends who read it; Another was a book review of her autobiography in which I blasted her "I knew nothing, I was not a party member" line which she used to try to morally absolve herself of her collaboration with the Nazis. I got a lot of hate mail accusing me of not separating the person from the artist. That, of course, is Scheisse! It is possible to admire (some) of her work while recognizing that it's not the artist who deserved a life sentence at Spandau prison (which is what mediocre architect Albert Speer got), but a Nazi propagandist -- who knew what happened in the death camps, because she used Jewish prisoners as "extras" in her film projects -- and enabler who should have been locked up.

I don't care WHAT Lenny Peikoff said in Ominous Parallels, Wagner was a god musically! I am listening to Leopold Stokowski conduct Siegfried's Death and Funeral Procession, and it is absolutely gorgeous, powerful, resonating, tragic, larger-than-life, the fountainhead which made the music of Mahler, Richard Strauss, Max Steiner, and even Bernard Herrmann's soundtrack for Vertigo possible! Long live Chromatics!!! And Cesar Franck, too!!!

I suppose it depends on one's particular tastes, because I immediately took to this symphony. I bought it on a cassette when I was 18 (Ashkenazy/Philharmonia) and listened to it while driving in the Appalachian mountains on Interstate 81, during a snowstorm. As trucks passed my tiny econobox, they threw slush onto my windshield. It sort of heightened the emotional impact of the symphony. In retrospect, it reminds me of the "winshield wipers" cue music Bernard Herrmann wrote for Janet Leigh's fateful last drive in "Psycho." That, and Sibelius is my favorite composer. It does have a beautiful trombone solo, which bridges the (seamless) movements. I envy you for having played it!

Peter, I have recordings of Nielsen's 2nd and 4th symphonies, but not his fifth. On your recommendation,I will check it out. Sibelius's 4th Symphony is called his "Barkbrot" symphony , Swedish for the bread made from the bark of trees they were forced to eat in famine. Strange you call it "cold"; Sibelius himself likened it unto a glass of clear, cold, pure water. It is very powerful and dark work, and if you've never heard Stokowski or Ormandy conduct it, then you haven't really heard it.

I thought I was being obscure, ha ha! Wow, you know not only who Dio is, but Rainbow, perhaps even Elf!

Interesting! I wonder who is going to make one about the self-hating WASP or WHAM (White Able-bodied Heterosexual Male). You know the guy who thinks we should not say queer, bitch, nigger, A-rab, or Spic, like for example, Ernest Hemingway in Winner take Nothing (1934, page 200) wrote "I wish I could talk spik . . . I don't get any fun out of asking that spik questions." I watched FoxNews, that bastion of conservative thought, the other day and they went on and on about Barak Hussein Osama I mean Obama. NOT once did they mention he is black. Finally some black fellow came on and said "He has brown skin". Yea, no shit Sherlock! The silly thing is that if I were a pinko then I would like the guy. He kicked ass in his debate with Alan Keyes, who I like a lot. Poor Alan has not been seen since. It is self-hating not to call Hispanics spicks or women bitches or blacks niggers? Huh? Did I miss something here?